Create a haven for garden birds.

---

Product Description

A practical month-by-month guide to attracting birds to your garden.

The Bird-friendly Garden helps you to make your garden into a haven for birds, whether it's a balcony, a courtyard or simply a window ledge. Each style of garden features full-page garden plan illustration by Gill Tomblin. There is also a section on unusual gardens, such as those near the coast. Each one is supplemented by suggestion for the best nest-boxes, feeders and bird-baths to install, as well as the best plants to cultivate.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #427335 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Northern Echo
The ideal new book for gardeners around the country

Bird Watching
This is a useful introduction for anyone new to the subject

Cambridge Evening News
The Bird Friendly Garden is a must for all gardeners with a passion for bird watching

---

Customer Reviews

Good for total beginners
I think this book would be useful mostly to people who are complete newcomers to wildlife gardening and garden birdwatching. I would describe it as a field guide and gardening book in one - however, trying to fit all that much info into one small book does mean that something has to go to make space; which means if you already know a bit about birds and bird gardening then this won't be of much use. And there was no need for the photo of poor Mrs Blackbird being mauled by a cat!

In retrospect I would have been better off buying a more advanced book on wildlife gardening as I have more than enough bird ID books as it is. So if you are more at an intermediate level you might want to skip this book and go for something more in-depth and totally dedicated to wildlife gardening. The one redeeming feature is the wildlife plant directory, which, for me, meant the book wasn't a total failure.

Not up to expectations
I found this a well presented book with excellent photographs. However the chapters on Planning the Garden, Feeding the Birds etc. are fairly short once you ignore the space (sometimes quite large) taken up by the pictures. In contrast, the 'Directory of Garden Birds' takes up 80 of the books 150 or so 'useful' pages and includes several species (e.g. White Stork, Wryneck) which I wouldn't expect in many gardens in the UK. I'd be better off buying a good gardening book to accompany my standard bird guide I think.

I would not have bought this if I had looked at it in a shop and have returned the book.

Versatile
I was looking for a general wildlife gardening book, and came across this one. Although it is indicated to be for birds only (and succeeds famously at that) it is an excellent source for general wildlife gardening as well, since if you attract other wildlife to your garden, then birds ar sure to follow.
There is a very handy section on plant selection, bird identification, a season by season guideline on which birds you can expect, as well as what to plant and what to feed the birds. A great book, and much better then other general wildlife books that I bought. Even if you have a small city patch this book will be of benefit, it is very highly recommended.